January i, 1892.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 507 
SISAL HEMP IN THE BAHAMAS. 
Bdgah Mayhew Bacon. 
On Inagua Island, the most southern of the 
Bahamas groiip, there is a stone bailding known as 
the salt house, under the ample roof of which fre- 
quently sounds the clatter of a vigorous donkey en- 
gine. Entering the building, the first sight to 
meet the eyes is a heap of sharp pointed, deep green 
leaves, which a negro is feeding, one by one, into 
a rapidly revolving machine. At his right lies a 
pile of long, powerful fibre, such as is used in rope 
making. Near by is a cart into which a boy is 
throwing the vegetable waste or pulp which he ga- 
thers from beneath the machine. This bagasse, as 
it is called, is wet with eap, and so strongly acid 
as to kill other vegetable growth with which it may 
be brought in contact. The fibre is the product, 
the bagasse the refuse (as yet unused) of the sisal 
leaves. There are about four feet and a half in 
length, averaging longer than do the leaves of the 
same plant grown in Yucatan. At the base, where 
they have been cut, they are thicker than a man's 
hand and from three and a half to five inches in 
Ibrcadth, running from this to a point so fine and 
hard that it can be used as a stiletto. The edges 
are armed with slight spiny serrations. An attendant 
with knife and maul removes the sharp points, 
crushes the thick ends, and divides each leaf longi- 
tudinally. Each strip is fed, by the negro in charge, 
into the mouth of his machine, through which it 
is carried half its length by the rapidly-revolving 
cylinder. It is then drawn out, which scrapes the 
bagasse from it. Reversing the strip, the operation 
is repeated and the result, a long, white " switch " 
of fibre, is added to the pile already noticed. The 
fibre is now washed in salt water (which gives better 
results than if fresh water is used), after which the 
hanks are hung in a drying house or better still, 
in the sun till perfectly dry, when the material is 
ready for baling and shipment. An old turtle tank 
or "crawl," cut out of the soft celcareous rock, with 
a small hole in the wall, which divides it from the 
ocean, so that the tide can flow in and out, makes 
an excellent basin for rinsing the fibre. 
Sisal closely resembles the manilia hemp of the 
Spice and Philippine Islands, when prepared for 
miu-ket, and is not unlike it when growing. In 
Yucatan they are generally kuown as Hennequin. 
They possess in varying degrees the strength, length, 
and luster of fibre upon which the market value de- 
pends. The Sacqui, botanically known as Aijai-e 
Ixtli, introduced some years ago into Florida under 
the name of Ai/arc Sisalana and often called Blaguey, 
has received the greatest attention from Mexican 
(Yucatan) cultivators. The plant which is being 
cultivated in the Bahamas was at first called "Pita," 
and, although greatly resembling the Sacqui, is con- 
sidered a superior kind. A number of more or less 
worthless plants, having apparently the same general 
characteristics, are to be found throughout the West 
Indian Islands. A gentleman in Jamaica, with five 
hundred acres prepared for hemp planting, recently 
showed mc the plants which he proposed to use, 
and which he imagined to be good Sisal. They 
were the valueless Keratto, the leaves of which 
miglit deceive any but an expert, but which upon 
being cleaned produce a fibre so weak that its 
cultivation would be utter folly. 
A full-grown Sisal plant has sixty to eighty great 
loaves, growing around a connnon centre, which in- 
cline from a group of upright, undeveloped ones in 
the middle of the cluster to an outer circle that is 
nearly horizontal. Many leaves measure over six 
feet in length, but tlio average length of the "ripe" 
ones, as already stated, is four and a half feet. The 
average number of leaves which may bo procured 
from each plant annually is over forty, being in ex- 
cess of the Yucatan production. The separation of the 
the loaf from the plant is made with a knife near 
tlio liaso, and ripe leaves may be cut from two-and- 
a-half years-old pUuUs, although the length of time 
required for maturity differs in dilfcrout localities. 
stripped annually, or even more frequently, for twenty 
years, and when it shows sign of age may be re- 
placed by a sucker, of which the careful Sisal culti- 
vator will be sure to have a nursery full for such 
emergencies. The propagation of the Sisal is either 
by seeds or suckers. The latter spring up around 
the mature plants constantly, and should be carefully 
removed because they sap the life of the parent 
and also for the reason that they are most valuable 
for replanting. When plants remain imcut for too 
long a time, a huge flower stalk shoots up from the 
centre to the height of eighteen feet. After having 
flowered and matured its seeds, the plant invari- 
ably dies. 
Experienced growers use six hundred and fifty 
plants to the acre, in rows eleven feet by six feet 
distant from each other. This will give room for 
the laborers to walk between the rows without being 
wounded by the terrible spurs which, like a cluster 
of keen spears, make each plant a menace to the 
unwary. Besides this, the closer planting would re- 
sult in the piercing of innumerable leaves every 
time the wind blew, and the consequent destruction 
of much fibre. Stabs and bruises mean discoloration, 
and the expense of sorting damaged lots apart 
from the proportional loss would be an added and 
not insignificant item in the labour account of a 
plantation. Many people who have caught the 
"Sisal fever" are planting acre after acre, expect- 
ing nothing less than that the farms, when planted, 
will take care of themselves. To be successful in 
this enterprise requires unceasing activity and care. 
One must be Argus eyed. One season of poor 
prices, with the consequent discouragement which 
is apt to follow in the case of nine small proprietors 
out of ten, in a country where the peasantry are 
all negroes will result in an overgrowth of suckera 
and the poling of mature plants till nothing short 
of absolute clearing and starting anew will save the 
farms. There is no cultivation where system and 
perseverance are more necessary to success. The 
dropping of the seed from a single " pole," if not 
watched and attended to immediately, will produce 
little spears enough to destroy a hundred plants, 
and I have frequently seen a dozen suckers start 
up around and under the leaves of their parent. 
After such crowding, the leaves would be worthless, 
even could they be reached ; but no man, unless 
arrayed in metal armor strong and stout enough to 
withstand the thrust of steel, would be so foolhardy 
as to attempt to penetrate such a growth. What I 
want to impress is the fact that without that patient 
and systematic care, which I have no where observed 
as characteristic of the unled negro, a field of Sisal 
is as valueless as a field of mullein. 
The hardiness of the Sisal is something wonderful. 
It grows best on lands which seem good for nothing 
else. Bock land, where the hardy sage, the swora 
plant, or cactus crowd the stunted, gnarled hard- 
wood trees ; where the fissures in the sun-hardened 
limestone are filled with a dry, sandy soil, and 
hardly a barrelfiil of that to the acre, will produce 
Sisal. If hard pushed, it will grow in the air, 
witlioiit soil, I have tw^elve living plants which I 
kept shut up for eighteen months in a cigar box 
without light, air or water. But such growth as 
will result in a marketable commodity is a different 
matter. That requires a soil not too rich, which 
induces fatness and loss of fibre, nor too poor, or 
the plant grows dwarfed. The ground must not be 
too wet or too dry. 
When the right spot has been found; when the 
selection of seeds or suckers, the preliminary pre- 
paration, has been accomplished ; tnen, the choice 
of season hastens or retards the work of preparing 
the ground for the reception of the plants. Of course 
there is no winter ; no frost or cold to contend with ; 
no blizzard to calculate for. But there are rainy 
and dry seasons. One must calculate so that the 
necessary burning of cut brush and trees will not 
occur when the tires are liable to be extinguished 
by the violent down-pour of the " winter " rains, 
nor the planting delayed until the dry montb^j itj. 
